


The Touch of a Vanish'd Hand

by alamorn



Category: Hellboy (Movies 2004-2008)
Genre: F/M, Missing Scene, Nuala-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:41:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21827635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alamorn/pseuds/alamorn
Summary: Nuala knew how it would end before it began.
Relationships: Nuada/Nuala (Hellboy)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 35
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	The Touch of a Vanish'd Hand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Damkianna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damkianna/gifts).



> Title from _Break, Break, Break_ by Lord Tennyson because when a canon gives you a poet to rip titles from, you best start ripping.

Nuala knew how it would end before it began. She knew how it would end when Nuada turned his head and fled from peace as the Golden Army marched beneath the earth. She knew how it would end when her father took her shoulder and leaned on her as they retreated to their court, already hearing the scream of saws through wood, the encroachment of the treaty beginning as the ink dried.

"You'll have to stop him, someday," her father whispered, and Nuala tightened her hand around the fragment of the crown, warm as skin and smooth against her palm. Nuada's anger roiled in the back of her mind, still so strong her own heart was beating faster.

She didn't want to kill her brother for these people, who had no honor. She didn't want to die.

But she had watched as the Golden Army cut across the world. She had watched the fields drown in blood, the rivers turn red. She had seen the pain the Golden Army brought, and she knew that nothing could justify that. And so she had known, the moment that Nuada had heard of the truce and shook his head, what she would have to do.

Nuada had known it too, of course. They had always known each other's minds. But he would never kill her, and mistook his certainty for hers.

He had always been the better sibling.

It went very slowly at first. Their separation was a shock, enough of one that time seemed to slow, the way it did after the striking of a great wound. Every day that she looked up and saw his absence was like the moment you discovered your own blood coating your hands, the shock still greater than the pain, the knowledge that pain was coming, inevitable, unstoppable.

They had never been apart before he left. Not in the womb, not in their childhood, not in the court.

Nuada had always clung to her; she was born first, Nuada clutching her heel. The humans had stories like that, but not quite. In the human story, the siblings were in conflict, were at war. Nuala had never been at war with her brother. She had only ever wanted him to find peace.

She read human stories, after he left. Studying them. Searching for him. Hoping that if she could anger him, he would return to her. 

Nuada had always clung to her; she was not sure she was ready to forgive him for letting go. 

It was an imperfect release; they dreamed together, still. Whenever they slept at the same time, they slid into each other, as seamlessly as if they still shared everything else.

She kept up with him that way. Let him tell her what he was doing, what new creatures and people he had met. He did not make friends easily, her brother, her other half, and she mourned for him, alone out in the great wide world. The Court was growing smaller by the day, shrinking in on itself as wonder died and pipes were sunk, mines dug, but she would take the claustrophobia over the loneliness. 

In their dreams, Nuada touched her, desperately, reverently, as if by holding her tightly enough, he would wake with her by his side. She held him just as desperately, as if soft hands now would lighten the blow later. 

He always asked her to join him, hope softening the hard lines of his face. He never learned. That was what hurt her most. That she turned him down each night, each night responded to his request with her own, "Come home," and still he hoped, still he saw a future where this did not end with their deaths.

"Come home," she said, hand on his face, chest pressed to his, so their hearts would beat in unison despite the distance between them. "Brother. I miss you."

He tilted her head back and pressed a careful kiss to her lips. Here, in their shared dream, there was no flavor to him, no texture. She dug her fingers into his cheek, desperate for contact. There was nothing. And she knew that the next time she saw him in person, it would be the end, but still she wanted. 

They weren't meant to be separate people and this pain was just their halved soul seeking to join once more. 

It wasn't as comforting a thought as it had once been. 

"For you," he said, "anything."

Nuala pulled back, searched his eyes for a lie, though Nuada had never lied to her. 

Dread and joy curled through her in equal measure. So it began.

When she woke, she took a moment to feel uncomplicated joy. She would see her brother soon, her other half. And then, once she had taken that moment, she got up and went to tell her father the end was coming.

As slowly as it had moved before, it moved quickly now.

She knew what she was asking him when she asked for his sword. She knew what it meant when he gave it to her. 

No one would ever accuse her of entering this with her eyes closed. 

She took his blade. He killed their father. She fled. It was all as she had known it would be, but even now she didn't want to do what she knew she had to. It was easier to pretend that she could keep him from the Golden Army. And when she met Abe... well, she hadn't seen  _ that _ coming. 

Abe was easy to like, and so she liked him, saw no reason to deny herself this now, at the end of all things. But when Nuada seized her by the arm and dragged her through the Mist, she didn't fight it. Her will was as strong as his; had she wanted to, she could have stopped his magic, sent them elsewhere. But it had been so long since she'd been able to speak to her brother and she missed him.

Was that foolish of her?

She didn't know what would happen when they died, didn't know if they would be reunited, or reborn, or simply cease. And before it happened, she wanted a moment just for herself, purely selfish. The rest of the world would go on, after today, and it would do so without her, without Nuada, the elven court destroyed and mourning. 

"I missed you," she said, as they approached the Golden Army, back in the lands they had been born in. 

Nuada's hand loosened around her wrist, and he glanced over his shoulder at her, paused and rubbed at the cut he had left. "And I, you. Why will you not join me?"

"You know why," she said.

"Why would you let him look at you like that?"

Nuala had to smile at his jealousy. "I cannot control his eyes, brother."

"Without humans, he would be happier," Nuada said, his pivot as swift in argument as in battle. "You know it's true. What life does he have, hidden away, made to feel shame? What life do any of us have, kept from the sun as we are?"

"I am not unhappy," Nuala said, forgoing the argument Nuada wanted to have in favor of the one he actually meant. She had little patience for games now. "We have lived a long time, my brother, and I am tired."

"We can't let them win," he said. "It is not only magic they destroy."

"And what have we destroyed? Everything has its time. Ours is at its end. Their time will end sooner than you think. Sooner than they think."

"They don't  _ think _ ," Nuada spat. "They consume and destroy and hunger for more."

"And what do tooth fairies do?" she asked. "What did you do  _ to _ them, our cousins?"

He shook his head, but said nothing. She'd suspected he was past defending his actions; he would not have sent the elemental to its death, if that were not true.

She sighed, pressed their foreheads together, felt his breath wash over her lips, hot and metallic, like he was already one with the Golden Army. "I do not want to be Queen of a sea of blood."

"You would rather be queen of nothing?" he asked, pulling away from her, as if by putting distance between them he could unhear her words.

"Yes," she said, following, pressing. "If the Veil must fall, let it do so peacefully. Let us meet each other, face to face. It does not have to come to blows."

"It will," he said, darkly sure. "It always does, with humans."

She followed him through the ruined city, quiet, basking in his presence. Her cheek no longer hurt, and her heart's ache was no more than it had been for the past millennia.

When Nuada broke the silence, it was to say, "I wanted you by my side. You're not my hostage."

Nuala had to smile at that. No, she wasn't. But she didn't think he understood just how true that was. "I forgive you."

"I do not ask your forgiveness," he snapped.

"Then do not take it," she said. "No action is required on your part."

He had something he wanted to say. She could feel the words pressing at her own throat, this close, the two of them separate beings as matter of habit, rather than fact. But Nuada kept them swallowed back until they emerged into the hall of the Golden Army, the warm seeds of destruction curled across the floor. A garden sown with seeds of death. Beautiful and terrible, and everything Nuada deserved. "I didn't want to kill him," he said, staring out over the hall, stretching out beyond comprehension, beyond forgiveness.

"I know," she said, for she did. She had felt Nuada's despair, his resignation. She had felt his bitter resentment, and the even more bitter joy he had taken in killing their father. "He made it easy for you."

"He took my blade and set his guard against me," Nuada said, wry, some trace of his old humor. 

But Nuala, who knew her blow would be unseen, unexpected, said, "He did not make you execute him. It was the only gift he could give."

Nuada slid her a glance, face impassive, emotions roiling. He'd not been able to think of their father without resentment since the Golden Army first went away -- or before that, even, since the first time their father separated them, hoping physical distance would lead to distance between their hearts. He'd succeeded, and Nuada had never forgiven him. But now, a horrible thread of gratitude joined the turmoil. 

"You forgive him, as well?"

"There is nothing to forgive."

"He would kill you with me. That is a cruelty."

"It was necessary."

Nuada twisted his fingers with hers as they walked through the rows of the slumbering soldiers. "Between you and the world, one should always choose you."

"You didn't," she said, and he flinched. "My life is not worth the world, and even you know that."

"The world is not worthy of  _ you _ ," he said, but did not hesitate in his steps. 

It hurt very little, at this point. He'd made the decision long ago, and the scar tissue was well settled. They came to the center, with its spinning gears and settled in to wait. 

Nuada dropped to the floor, legs pretzeled, and Nuala sat in his lap. The end was in sight, and she had missed her brother for so long. She pressed their chests together, felt his heart beat with her own, and closed her eyes. In this space, there was no Golden Army, no dead father, no humans, no coming war. There was only them, together at last, no one and nothing to pull them apart.

Nuala breathed. And slid one of Nuada's blades up her sleeve.


End file.
